Editorial
The Gist
- Composability for agility. Composable digital technologies offer flexibility, allowing businesses to adapt to market changes and avoid vendor lock-in.
- Legacy tech limitations. Monolithic platforms lack the speed and agility required for rapid response in turbulent markets, creating dependencies and delays.
- Principles of composability. Key principles like modularity, separation of concerns, and interoperability help businesses innovate and respond swiftly to disruptions.
Feeling uncertain about how best to navigate market turbulence ahead? Well, you probably should be.
The impact of tariffs, significant regulatory changes and other economic stress tests — along with the usual day-to-day competitive pressures, artificial intelligence distractions and changing customer sentiments — all add up to one thing: We can be sure that we need to be much better prepared for how to respond to upcoming marketplace changes.
Table of Contents
- Why Composability Matters in Digital Experience
- Adaptability as a Competitive Advantage
- Monotholic DXPs Bring Features, Not Speed
- Principles of a Composable Approach
- What’s Your Composability Quotient?
- Core Questions Around Composability
Why Composability Matters in Digital Experience
Composability is a principle of breaking down rigid, monolithic platforms suites and cleverly assembling and integrating modular digital technologies to avoid big tech “lock-in” and costly project delays in launching new websites or digital products. Composability allows business sponsors to have more control of user interfaces by decoupling digital customer experiences from difficult-to-adapt legacy systems.
And, teams skilled at operating with modular content and modern UI component frameworks can much more easily and effectively respond to marketplace changes by reusing and integrating components, rather than building from scratch and taking a ticket and waiting for a centralized IT board to vet the business request.
This modular, “best-fit” approach allows business executives to quickly respond to change without being “locked in” or queued up behind a backlog of other resource intensive projects.
If you are a business leader concerned about how your firm will be able to navigate upcoming changes and surprises, conduct a sober assessment of your current marketing technology and digital engagement practices. Press your responsible leaders for a “quick response” digital communications plan that answers the question, “How quickly could you launch a net new website that captures user information and supports your clients and partners’ most critical needs?” Chief risk officers or their delegates should be a part of this exercise.
Related Article: 3 Major Marketing Technology Trends You Should Know About
Adaptability as a Competitive Advantage
When a wayward asteroid landed 66 million years ago, the resulting cataclysm led to the extinction of almost all dinosaurs, which were not able to adapt to their new circumstances. Mammals, on the other hand, were smaller, smarter and better equipped to regroup and adjust.
Similarly, the sudden onset of the pandemic in 2020 and resulting shutdowns neatly divided businesses into two categories: those that were caught flat-footed versus those that adapted quickly. Up to that point, qualities such as agility, modularity and scalability may have seemed like abstract principles or nice-to-haves, but they immediately became essential attributes for core enterprise applications: particularly those that interacted and supported critical communications with clients and partners.
Digital communications require a seamless omnichannel experience that is easily accessed and relevant to the client or partner’s profile. If your team’s response is that they can’t launch an omnichannel experience in days or weeks, then it is time to probe more deeply to understand what is holding them back from being able to more effectively engage clients and partners in a time of crisis.
Monotholic DXPs Bring Features, Not Speed
Legacy monolithic DXPs (digital experience platforms) were not designed primarily for the benefit of speed or agility. While the all-in-one approach might seem like a time- and labor-savor, the reality is the monolith’s tightly coupled architecture — in which features and capabilities such as content management, personalization, analytics and ecommerce are unified in a single platform — actually reduces speed-to-market.
In fact, all-in-one platforms result in increased complexity because their components are intertwined and interdependent, and updating or replacing one part without affecting the others can be challenging.
On top of that, these platforms create a dependency on a single vendor (which might find itself overwhelmed by customer requests in the event of unexpected circumstances). Because these monolithic platforms require specialized skills and certifications, there are limited personnel available to work on them, and, as a result, their services are priced accordingly.
If it seems this moment in history is a case study about the power of composable technology, well, perhaps it truly is. Every business needs to evaluate its martech strategy and decide whether its current tech stack meets its needs and provides competitive advantage.
Related Article: The Benefits — and Challenges — of Composable Digital Experience Platforms
Principles of a Composable Approach
Philosophically, the composable approach draws on several core principles:
- Rocks, Not Boulders: In uncertain times, agility is critical, and “rocks, not boulders” emphasizes the importance of breaking down complex systems into smaller, manageable components. By working with modular parts, businesses can make incremental changes without overhauling entire systems, enabling them to innovate faster, adapt to shifting market demands and scale efficiently, while avoiding the inertia that comes with rigid, monolithic structures.
- Separation of Concerns: This principle ensures each component in a composable ecosystem is responsible for a specific function, operating independently of others. Reducing interdependencies makes it easier to update or replace components without disrupting the entire system. A marketing team, for example, can swap out a personalization engine or analytics tool without affecting core content delivery. As a result, businesses can achieve greater stability and adaptability, enabling them to respond swiftly to changing customer needs and market disruptions.
- Interoperability by Design: Composable systems depend on components that are designed to work together seamlessly, even if they come from different vendors. “Interoperability by design” ensures that each module adheres to open standards, such as APIs, to enable smooth integration and future scalability. This fosters innovation by allowing organizations to experiment with new tools or technologies without committing to a full rebuild. Prioritizing interoperability helps businesses create a resilient tech stack that evolves with their needs, ensuring they stay competitive in an unpredictable world.
What’s Your Composability Quotient?
Principles are, by definition, abstract. To determine your business’s composability quotient, ask your organization’s marketing leaders:
- Can we launch a new customer-driven digital experience in days or weeks? Or does it take months and months?
- Are our cross-functional teams equipped to quickly prototype new workflows and digital products?
- Are we equipped to rapidly deliver cohesive messages to various audience segments in the event of a disruption?
For organizations dependent on all-in-one digital experience platforms, the answer to those questions is often no. But as we enter a period of greater uncertainty, the organizations that survive and come out stronger will be the ones who are able to answer in the affirmative.
Core Questions Around Composability
Editor's note: These are some of the top questions businesses might ask to evaluate their composability readiness and adaptability in uncertain markets.
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How does composability enhance business agility in volatile markets?
Composability enables businesses to respond swiftly to market changes by breaking down systems into modular components. This approach allows for faster adaptation, reduced project delays, and the ability to launch new customer experiences without being tied to rigid legacy platforms or vendor dependencies.
What are the risks of relying on monolithic digital platforms?
Monolithic platforms often lead to slower time-to-market due to their tightly coupled architecture. They create vendor lock-in, increase complexity and require specialized skills, which limit flexibility and scalability. In periods of market disruption, these limitations can hinder a company’s ability to quickly adapt and innovate.
What principles define a successful composable technology strategy?
Key principles include modularity ("rocks, not boulders"), separation of concerns to reduce interdependencies, and interoperability by design for seamless integration. These principles ensure businesses can update or replace components without disrupting the system, fostering innovation and resilience in dynamic markets.
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